AOL Tipping Point

From DSL Reports: "This Thursday the board of Time Warner is slated to review proposed operating changes for AOL. The bid, to make more of the web portal's services free, is hoped to ensure future advertising revenues. Though often viewed as a dinosaur, AOL is still the largest ISP in the US and accounted for 19 per cent of Time Warner's revenues last year. A 1 billion influx of capital from Google was also a reminder that AOL may still be viable. All of the big players offer the same services as AOL: e-mail, search, and now social networking. And Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, and the newest entrant MySpace, offer them for free. "The real value to AOL in the future — if it has a value — is as an advertising and marketing platform," said Morris Mark, managing partner of Mark Asset Management LLC, a Time Warner shareholder. "Google did not make a 5 per cent investment in the company out of charity."" At what point does the reclining AOL revenue affect the stock more than going free does? That is the Tipping Point. Plus they have to wonder what value the "AOL Brand" has left. All the news is ELN, VoIP, Web 2.0, Google, Microsoft, YouTube, MySpace & Net Neutrality. Is AOL even relevant any more? Is there a spin-off of the Internet division coming from TW??